I have been officially detained and questioned four times in my life… twice in Poland, once in Romania, and once in what used to be Czechoslovakia. When I was in Germany attending a Torchbearer’s Bible School in 1979 and 1980, I joined a group that enabled me to travel for a few action-packed weeks through several communist Eastern European countries: Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
We went during Christmas break and spring break posing as tourists, however our main purpose was to deliver Bibles and other Christian literature (all strictly forbidden in those countries in those days) to Christian pastors behind the “Iron Curtain”. Those communist governments fell in 1989, and no longer exist, so I suppose it’s OK to talk about it now.
Here is an article from Time Magazine’s March, 1979 issue that describes more about the work.
This particular incident took place on Christmas Day in 1979, in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. We were on our way back out of Poland, and heading for Vienna, Austria. My two companions and I were in the parking lot of the train station having our very special Christmas Dinner… pork and beans. One of us had the great idea of taking a picture of the special occasion, since it was Christmas!
(Some of you will recognize Greg Buchan on the left. He’s a friend from Newberg High School and the Newberg Friends Church youth group. That’s me in the middle, and Sam on the right.)
Not too long after climbing back in to the “Porcelain Pony” (we affectionately called our Fiat van this since it was sort of a dull white color), we heard some unintelligible yelling and tapping on the window. It was a uniformed officer, and a machine gun-toting guard, motioning us to accompany them into the train station.
The communist authorities were suspicious of lots of things, and they especially did not like anyone taking pictures near their government buildings. After questioning us thoroughly (through an interpreter), they finally believed us (that we were weren’t spies!), and they let us go. We told them that it was a common American tradition to photograph the Christmas meal. (Which is true, of course!)
Another main point that we made to the officer was that the train station is not even in the picture, since the camera was aimed down the street in the opposite direction. They didn’t pull the film out of my camera that day, so I got to keep the prized picture!
Here is a drawing I made soon after I got home, to record the exact moment they interrupted our jolly laughter. It was a memorable and Merry Christmas!
Later that week we delivered a large load Bibles to a pastor in Romania—five of which had a one-inch hole drilled straight through them! That is a story I will save for another post.
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